Patristics Series 33 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2006). (continued)
Against the Donatists 239
Lord warns, saying: "He who is not with me is against me, and who does not gather with me, scatters" (Mt 12:30). He who breaks the peace and concord of Christ acts against Christ; he who gathers somewhere outside the Church scatters the Church of Christ. . . . He who does not hold this unity, does not hold the law of God; who does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.15
Cyprian, a few years later, got into a tense debate with Pope Stephen on how to reconcile those baptized by schismatic Novatianists. Stephen treated returning Novatianists as penitents, reconciling them by the laying-on of hands. Cyprian insisted that they be rebaptized—or rather, receive genuine baptism within the one and only Church. On this policy, he and his North African colleagues formed a united front and strongly defended rebaptism. From Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 70:
(1) When we were together in council, dearly beloved brethren, we read your letter which you wrote concerning those who seem baptized among heretics and schismatics, as to whether they ought to be baptized when they come to the Catholic Church, which is one. Concerning this matter . . . we express our judgment, . . . judging plainly and holding for certain that no one can be baptized outside the Church, since there is one baptism appointed in the Holy Church. And it is written in the words of the Lord, "they have forsaken me, the source of living water; and they have dug themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water" (Jer 2:13). But the water ought first to be cleansed and sanctified by the bishop that it may be able to wash away in its baptism the sin of the person who is baptized since the Lord says through Ezekiel: "And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your impurities and from all your idols. And I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you" (Ezek 36:25–26). But how can he who is himself unclean and who does not have the Holy Spirit cleanse and sanctify water, since the Lord says in Numbers: "Whatever the unclean person touches will be unclean" (Nm 19:22)? Or how can one who baptizes grant to another the remission of sins who, himself outside the Church, cannot put aside his own sins?
(2) . . . Among the heretics where the Church is not, sins are not forgiven. . . . Who can give what he himself does not have, or how can he accomplish spiritual deeds who himself has lost the Holy Spirit? And, therefore, he who comes ignorant to the Church must be baptized and renewed that he may be sanctified within through the holy ones since it is written: "Be holy, for I am also holy, says the Lord" (Lv 19:2). . . .
15. Cyprian, De unitate ecclesiae 4–6 (CCL 3: 252–54); trans. Deferrari, FOTC 36:99–101. Note that there are two recensions of this text. That both recensions are by Cyprian was demonstrated by Maurice Bévenot; see Cyprian: De Lapsis and De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971); see also Stuart G. Hall, "The Versions of Cyprian's De Unitate 4–5: Bévenot's Dating Revisited," Journal of Theological Studies 55 (2004): 138–46. This translation here is from the textus receptus, which reflects Cyprian's more collegial accent. On the broader context, see J. Patout Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, Routledge Early Church Monographs (New York: Routledge, 2002), esp. 78–99, 151–65.